Skyrim has interior cubemapped shadows which we don't, so we're not better in all aspects yet. (We can't easily add this as Morrowind's data doesn't say which lights to prioritise shadows for, so it would end up being a mess).

My idea for a new vision is not an engine for either Morrowind or indie RPGs, but an engine for all elder scrolls games.

[...]

Transforming OpenMW into OpenES will make sure to community has an engine it can trust for great graphics, convenience and proper mod support.

Are you sure it's your idea? I remember us talking about variations on this for years already, and I haven't even been around for that long compared to most people here.

For what it's worth, Arena and Daggerfall don't have anything to do with Gamebryo, so "all Elder Scrolls games" is a non-starter.

The Gamebryo Fallouts were more-or-less "Oblivion with guns" engine-wise, making them a much better fit. Support for them would, however, prevent OpenES from being a new name that makes sense.

I don't think the core OpenMW contributors should have to worry about supporting other existing games anytime soon. They have their hands full already and they're trying to maintain a sense of focus and sanity despite never-ending demands and pressures. Certainly, OpenMW already has a loftier goal in wanting to become a highly extensible open world RPG engine for new games.

However... There's really no harm in encouraging new experimental branches that attempt to reimplement the mechanics of other Gamebryo games in OpenMW. Whatever work was done on them would fall under the GPLv3 and thus be usable by the original project in the future.

TES3MP has proven that experimental branches can succeed while simultaneously staying in step with the parent project and not derailing it. Other branches can follow that example.

My idea for a new vision is not an engine for either Morrowind or indie RPGs, but an engine for all elder scrolls games.

[...]

Transforming OpenMW into OpenES will make sure to community has an engine it can trust for great graphics, convenience and proper mod support.

Are you sure it's your idea? I remember us talking about variations on this for years already, and I haven't even been around for that long compared to most people here.

For what it's worth, Arena and Daggerfall don't have anything to do with Gamebryo, so "all Elder Scrolls games" is a non-starter.

The Gamebryo Fallouts were more-or-less "Oblivion with guns" engine-wise, making them a much better fit. Support for them would, however, prevent OpenES from being a new name that makes sense.

I don't think the core OpenMW contributors should have to worry about supporting other existing games anytime soon. They have their hands full already and they're trying to maintain a sense of focus and sanity despite never-ending demands and pressures. Certainly, OpenMW already has a loftier goal in wanting to become a highly extensible open world RPG engine for new games.

However... There's really no harm in encouraging new experimental branches that attempt to reimplement the mechanics of other Gamebryo games in OpenMW. Whatever work was done on them would fall under the GPLv3 and thus be usable by the original project in the future.

TES3MP has proven that experimental branches can succeed while simultaneously staying in step with the parent project and not derailing it. Other branches can follow that example.

I can tell that you that I would be honest about it if I had got it from somwhere else.
That said, this is an idea I got from learning about Bethesda's ventures into paid modding.

The sound thing to do would be to start working on the most similar game AFTER you have replicated Morrowind's features. In other words, Oblivion and perhaps Skyrim later would be best to focus on, not the older titles. Could one add them in at a later point? Certainly, but that's far ahead in the future seeing that they're less popular and more eccentric. Many of the sought-after post 1.0 features might be directly related to replicating things from the later titles. So expanding OpenMW's functionality and Oblivion/Skyrim support aren't in all cases mutually exclusive.

because 'the way forward' makes too many assumptions and readers are unaware that the OP doesn't really have anything to say about OpenMW development aside from voicing their opinion.

I'm sorry for the bad wording here, I didn't want the discussion be about person, something that title kinda made it.
For me it's all about the larger TES-community and what we have to do to keep our way of gaming. An "OpenES" could probably be made completely separate from OpenMW, but since you have been so successful I mean you should lead the process towards freeing us from shady business decisions.

It's shocks me how much these sorts of topics garner attention from the devs, when there are more interesting topics about development progress and design choices that go untouched for days at a time.

Being a lurker long before I've made my account, I've noticed these discussions never delve into any new insights or territories. Most every one of these "You guys are doing a great job, but now you guys should follow my totally awesome vision for OpenMW (despite the fact that I have no experience in dev whatsoever)" only ever cover topics already discussed in various other discussions, and there's really no reason to seriously participate with them.

Not saying y'all should completely ignore these topics, but personally, I would. They happen every few months, by some random that's never had any part in the project, that expects their demands to be met by people putting their free time into this project. Lots of opinions get voiced, and it usually ends with OP getting their feelings hurt or feeling alienated when devs come in with the "Ackchyually"s.

Of course, I'm sure removing topics would be bad PR, but still, doesn't the cycle have to stop, somewhere?

It's shocks me how much these sorts of topics garner attention from the devs, when there are more interesting topics about development progress and design choices that go untouched for days at a time.

Being a lurker long before I've made my account, I've noticed these discussions never delve into any new insights or territories. Most every one of these "You guys are doing a great job, but now you guys should follow my totally awesome vision for OpenMW (despite the fact that I have no experience in dev whatsoever)" only ever cover topics already discussed in various other discussions, and there's really no reason to seriously participate with them.

Not saying y'all should completely ignore these topics, but personally, I would. They happen every few months, by some random that's never had any part in the project, that expects their demands to be met by people putting their free time into this project. Lots of opinions get voiced, and it usually ends with OP getting their feelings hurt or feeling alienated when devs come in with the "Ackchyually"s.

Of course, I'm sure removing topics would be bad PR, but still, doesn't the cycle have to stop, somewhere?

You didn’t read what I wrote did you? The devs don’t necessarily have to change a single thing in the near future. Let’s say they go exactly as planned and come to 1.0 with dehardcoding and new features. At that point they might start implementing features from the other titles like Ai-packages, sneak system etc. That’s when you could see benefits to start making the engine talk
with Oblivion too for example. Or you could say «let’s stay away from that». Point being, I’m not trying to derail the project as you imply. I’m sharing my thoughts on a discussion that is in my opinion, unavoidable.